


The Pied Piper of Privet Drive, or, How the Dursleys Came to Be Short-Listed for the All-England Best Kept Suburban Lawn Competition

by starfishstar, stereolightning (phalaenopsis)



Series: Collaborative Tales [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, rt_morelove
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 15:56:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3073655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfishstar/pseuds/starfishstar, https://archiveofourown.org/users/phalaenopsis/pseuds/stereolightning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brightly coloured character leads the residents of 4 Privet Drive astray…</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pied Piper of Privet Drive, or, How the Dursleys Came to Be Short-Listed for the All-England Best Kept Suburban Lawn Competition

**Author's Note:**

> In a (now) annual tradition, we present to you: our co-written story for rt–morelove!
> 
> Prompt: "There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other." (from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone)

Harry’s letter came in triplicate, tied to Hedwig’s ivory-coloured claw. Sirius, Ron, and Hermione read them at the same time, Ron nursing a gash Harry’s anxious owl had left in his right index finger, and all three of them rubbing distractedly at the spots where Hedwig had pecked at them, clearly intent that they take the letters seriously. Hermione finished reading first. 

“That’s it,” Sirius said. He was holding Harry’s letter so tightly that the paper trembled. “That’s IT! That is the final STRAW! We have to go and get him out of there!” 

Hedwig swivelled her head around to him, startled by the noise. Crookshanks surveyed the scene with amber eyes from his perch on an eighteenth-century divan, unmoved. 

“What does he write?” Remus asked. 

Remus noticed Hermione’s eyes reading the other two letters backward, through the paper. “They all say the same thing,” she said. “He’s been attacked by Dementors and he thinks he might be expelled. Which we already knew.” 

She handed the letter to Remus. Harry’s handwriting was eerily like Lily’s – Remus well remembered the particular swoop of her lowercase _g_ scribbled on their shared prefects’ schedules. 

_I want to know what’s going on and when I’m going to get out of here,_ Harry wrote. 

“NYMPHADORA!” Sirius yelled up the narrow, dimly lit stairs that led up to the rest of the house. 

“Don’t call me that!” came a hollered reply from somewhere upstairs. Then there was a loud pop and one Nymphadora Tonks appeared in front of Remus, in the centre of the kitchen – and right on top of a freshly mopped stretch of floor. She slipped. 

“What – ow!” she said. Instinctively, Remus reached out and helped her to her feet. She had a way of being constantly in motion – not twitchy, but animated, alive, like if you put your ear close enough to her, you might hear her whole body humming with an unseen current. Remus realised he was staring, and gently released Tonks’ arm from his grasp, now that she was safely upright again. She flashed him a disarming grin, then turned to ask Sirius, “What d’you want?” 

“Give me your broom,” Sirius said. “I’m going to fly down there myself and get him back.” 

“Sirius, we agreed with Dumbledore –” Remus began. 

“He’s been _attacked_ ,” Sirius said. “I’m sick of waiting for news. I have to _be_ there.” He picked up a mop and looked at it in disgust. “Why are we _mopping_?” 

“We can’t just flap down there and fetch him,” Remus said. “He has a guardian. Two guardians, in fact. And Arabella is keeping an eye out, as you well know.” 

“They aren’t his guardians,” Sirius said. “I’ve seen them. I once spent a whole afternoon hiding behind their agapanthus. They’re not _family_. They don’t love him. They don’t even listen to him.” 

“FILTH!” screamed the portrait of Sirius’ mother from upstairs. 

“Ah, look at that, you’ve set off the decor again, cousin,” Tonks said. 

From somewhere further above, Buckbeak squawked. 

“Give me your broom,” Sirius repeated to Tonks. Looking between them, Remus could see the family resemblance. And the family stubborn streak. Sirius’ “baby cousin,” as he insisted on calling her, had already proven herself more than capable of standing up to a single-minded Sirius. 

“I haven’t got it,” Tonks said. “It’s at Mum and Dad’s. Why don’t you take this mop?” She brandished it at him. 

Sirius made an unintelligible noise of rage. “I’ll Apparate, then!” 

“You could be seen,” Remus said. “And again, this is not the plan.” 

“This isn’t moves and counter-moves anymore. This is my godson. Look at the state of his owl!” Sirius said, holding out his thoroughly pecked hand. 

Hedwig trilled. 

“Why can’t we tell Harry something?” Hermione asked. “Surely – surely under the circumstances, we could write something back, to let him know that plans are being made, or they will be –” 

But a great grey owl was already tapping on the window. The letter attached to its foot was addressed to Sirius in Dumbledore’s slanting hand. 

Sirius threw the letter on the floor and spun off toward the stairs, kicking over a chair as he went. 

Remus picked up the letter. 

_It will be safe to move our young friend in three days’ time,_ it said. _Might I suggest you plan a strategy._  


...

“That’s easy,” George said, digging into a plate of his mother’s roast chicken with lemon. Another day had passed, and with it, more anxiety about Harry, and more Sisyphean housework. But at least there had been dinner to look forward to, with Molly Weasley’s wonderful cooking. “Send Sirius down there. He can bite that imbecile Dudley’s leg so the whole lot of them have to go to hospital.”  


“George,” Molly said. 

Sirius gave one of his jagged, still-handsome smirks. 

Molly noticed and looked away pointedly. “Surely someone could explain the situation to them.” 

“They won’t care,” Ron said. “That’s what I’ve been saying. You can’t reason with them.” 

“Young man, that is exactly the sort of anti-Muggle prejudice we’re fighting against,” Molly said, dishing more asparagus onto Ron’s plate even as she remonstrated with him. 

“It’s not because they’re Muggles,” Ginny piped up, between bites of potato. “It’s because they’re vile.” 

“I haven’t met them,” Hermione said. “Not officially, anyway. But they aren’t very kind to Harry at all.” 

“They put bars on his windows,” Ron said. “And a cat flap on the bedroom door, so they can put food in without letting him out. And he’d never had a birthday cake in his whole life until Hagrid brought him one for his eleventh.” 

Molly frowned. Remus was quite certain she was already planning an especially elaborate cake for Harry’s next birthday. Probably with a working fondant train on top. 

“Sounds like you’ll have to get them out of the picture for a while,” Tonks said, tapping the hollow above her lip in thought. 

“Exactly,” Fred said. “We could send a flock of enchanted budgerigars down their chimney and into their sitting room and have them lay a bunch of exploding eggs –” 

“That spatter the walls with paint and bacon grease –” George said. 

“And smell like the loos near the Quidditch pitch on a hot day –” Fred said. 

“What do they like? What interests them?” Tonks asked. 

“Bendlers,” Arthur said. “Rejifferators. Wycromave ovens. Kitchen’s full of them. I noticed when I was there.” 

“Video games,” Ron said. “Harry said his cousin has heaps of them. They’re some kind of Muggle games, but with proper pictures that move like they’re supposed to.” 

“Sweets,” George suggested, with a wicked grin. “That cousin of his _loves_ sweets.” 

“Weirdly perfect gardens,” Fred said, his mouth twisting with incomprehension. “The whole place looked like somebody put everything in the spot where they wanted it and then just cast a Freezing Charm. It was like it was all dead and mummified.” 

“Hmmm,” Tonks said. She passed a gravy boat to Remus, although he hadn’t asked for it, and their hands brushed as he took it. “They’re quite into keeping things neat and tidy, then? Pretty house-proud?” 

“ _Horrid_ people,” Sirius muttered in the direction of his potatoes, apropos of nothing in particular. 

“Yes,” Remus said, with an inkling as to where Tonks was going with this. “If they’re very proud of their home, that could be an angle to work with. Some kind of…award? Contest? Some event relating to homes or gardens that would grab their interest enough that they would leave home for it?” 

Tonks flashed him a grin. “Exactly. Appeal to their vanity, invite them to some made-up event, or – yeah, make it look like they’ve won some kind of award, and they’ve got to come somewhere and pick it up.” 

“Britain’s Most Boring Home Award,” Fred suggested. 

“The All-England Golden Hosepipe for the Ugliest Hedgerow,” George said. 

“Why not keep it honest,” Ginny said. “All-England Most Evil Relative Contest.” 

“Greediest Cousin Award!” Ron shouted. 

“No Basic Grasp of Family Dynamics or Child Psychology Prize,” Hermione muttered into her pumpkin juice. 

“The All-England Stupid Git Award,” Sirius said, smirking despite his ever-present concern for Harry. 

“The All-England Tidy Lawn Competition,” Remus suggested, trying to steer this conversation back to something productive. 

“The All-England Tidiest _Suburban_ Lawn Competition,” Tonks added. 

“The All-England Best Kept Suburban Lawn Competition?” Remus proposed. 

“Yes,” Tonks said. “Yeah, that’s perfect! Ha. They’ll eat that up, won’t they? Okay, so, Dumbledore says we can fetch Harry two days from now. So on that evening we’ll send his awful relatives off on a wild-pixie chase to a fictitious prize for petty people. Easy peasy.” 

Molly, who had kept mostly quiet during all this, asked, “And how exactly will you convince them of that?” 

“Confund them,” George said brightly, spearing an asparagus top with his fork. “I volunteer for the honour.” 

“Me too,” Ginny said. 

“You’re underage,” Molly said. 

“Does that mean I can go?” George said. 

“Of course not,” his mother retorted, almost before George had finished the question. 

“Send them a letter,” Ron said, nodding at Tonks. 

Hermione looked at Ron. “That’s not a bad idea. Write to them, and say it’s on behalf of the selection committee.” 

“And then send them somewhere far away,” Ron said. 

“Off a pier,” Ginny said. 

“The Pied Piper of Privet Drive,” Remus said, quietly. 

Tonks smiled at him. She turned to Hermione. “All right. I’ll need a nom de plume. What’s a plausible name for a Muggle lady, older than me but not so very old?” 

Hermione screwed up her face in thought. “Pamela?” 

“Done,” Tonks said. She pushed back her chair and stood up. “Ta for dinner, Molly. I’m off to find postage stamps!”  


...

The house was quiet, at last – all the Weasley children asleep, or pretending to be, and all the owls and elves and hippogriffs and cats at peace.  


“Muggle Queen, or fancy cats?” 

Remus looked up from his work – a new map capable not only of producing a moving dot for any person within range, but also of displaying that person’s intentions toward the beholder of the map. It was not yet reliable, because James, for all his apparent boisterousness, had been the most precise of their adolescent cadre of cartographers, and without him Remus’ maps were never as good. “Pardon?” he asked. 

Tonks sidled into the kitchen, her electric blue boots flashing into view in his peripheral vision. Even in the room’s low light, she was a bouquet of colour. She stuck two packets of postage stamps under his nose. “Queen, or cats? Which one?” 

“You should ask Pamela,” Remus said. 

“Hmm. Could do,” she said. She scrunched up her nose, and suddenly a petite woman with a Princess Diana haircut flecked with grey stood in front of him, wearing Tonks’ psychedelic plaid dress. “Or you could.” 

“Getting into character. Commendable thoroughness,” he said. He set his quill back in its ink. The dot next to ‘Nymphadora Tonks’ on the map had turned a curious shade of violet, all on its own, and had sprouted a mandala of petals. “Very well. Pamela, which would you choose – the Queen in profile, or this handsome tabby and his rather unfortunately squashy-faced friend?” 

In an eerily accurate imitation of just the sort of prissy woman Lily's sister had surely grown into, Tonks sniffed, “The Queen, of course! Cats indeed. Unclean creatures that tear up the lawn and leave rodents on the doorstep. I'm a traditionalist, I must say. When it comes to postage stamps, it can only ever be the Queen.” 

Remus chuckled. “Nymphadora Tonks, you are terrifying when you get into a role.” 

“ _Tonks_ ,” Tonks complained, regaining her normal appearance with a loud _pop_. “Seriously. It's Tonks.” 

“Tonks,” Remus agreed. The name rolled pleasantly in his mouth, its consonants a burst of bright colour, just as the person attached to them was. “All right, Tonks, you've got your Muggle postage stamp with the Queen on, but how about the letter to put it on?” 

“Drafting it,” Tonks said, tapping her temple. “In my head. Did a bit of thinking while I was queuing in the Muggle post office. Which is such a strange place, by the way. So odd to see all that post being delivered without a single owl. Gotta write it all down tonight.” 

She sounded delightfully pleased with the plan. This sort of verve and creativity was exactly what the Order of the Phoenix needed, Remus reflected. He could well see why Mad-Eye Moody had invited Tonks to join their ranks, alarmingly young though she was. Only qualified a year ago and already one of the sharpest of the bunch, was how Moody had described her when he’d first brought up Tonks’ name to the rest of the Order as a potential new member, a note of pride just detectable in his no-nonsense tone. 

Remus glanced up again to find Tonks gazing at him quizzically. “Knut for your thoughts,” she said, dropping the stamps on the tabletop and coming to perch on its edge next to where Remus was sitting. 

“Oh...” Remus began, and didn't know how to continue. “Just thinking that it's a good plan. And that it will be good to see Harry. I know Sirius is, er, more vocal about it, but I worry about Harry too. I’m sure Dumbledore will sort out things with the Ministry one way or another, but still, it will be good to have him under this roof, where we can all keep an eye on him.” 

“I can't wait to meet him,” Tonks said. “The famous Harry Potter. Though, Merlin, it must be weird for him, don't you think? That for most people he's this famous figure first, and only a normal kid second, if at all?” 

Remus thought of what he'd seen of the life Harry lived, in the year he'd taught at Hogwarts, and answered fervently, “Yes.” 

Tonks’ laugh with bright and sparkling, like champagne, or the bubbles Remus had sometimes seen Muggle children blow from plastic wands. “Good thing, then, that we've got just the antidote for him,” she said. “A summer spent cleaning and de-infesting this horrid old house would be enough to make any famous teenager feel more normal than he ever would have wished.” 

Remus smiled. “Too true. Now all that’s left is to lure his relatives away and get him safely here.” 

“Leave the luring to me.” Tonks grinned and hopped off the table. “Speaking of which, I’ve got a letter to write.” She started toward the door, then stopped. “You're going to be part of this ‘Advance Guard’ that collects Harry, aren’t you?” 

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Remus said. “And you?” 

“Of course! I’ve got to see the results of my handiwork, haven’t I?” She fairly bounced toward the stairs. “Fantastic. I'll see you in a couple days, then. Cheerio, Remus.” 

Remus listened as the energetic tread of her boots receded up the stairs, and found himself smiling as he returned to his work. Her violet dot disappeared from the map, shedding petals that lingered in the margins. For a moment, he considered following her, to ask her if she was in a particularly purple mood – for research purposes. 

He shook his head. Pied Piper, indeed. It was truly very easy to follow her, just as it had been easy to follow James and Sirius any number of places Remus might not otherwise have gone. Into the Forbidden Forest, for example, or down the secret passageway into the cellar of Honeyduke’s, where they’d once spent a whole night capturing stray chocolate frogs… Who knew, then, where following Nymphadora Tonks might lead him?  



End file.
